It’s 2024, a new year, and those of us who practice a faith may well be starting the year with prayer. Perhaps about upcoming changes; perhaps about our dreams and goals; perhaps about the state of the world.

 But, how do we pray? Are our prayers effective? Is there any way to make them moreso?

Lots of people say…

Many of us in the West have been invited to all kinds of prayer-training. Theophostic prayer. Release of generational curses. Inner healing. Breathing techniques. Lectio divina. Contemplative prayer. The prayer of faith or “name it and claim it.” Some of these techniques have a Scriptural basis and some are a twisting of the Truth. Some help the person praying to relate to the real God and some boil down to an attempt to manipulate God to do our will. How can we know the difference?

Tim Keller says…

According to Timothy Keller, “We should do everything possible to behold our God as He is, and prayer will follow.” He continues with advice near and dear to my heart: immerse yourself in Scripture. That is, “Without immersion in God’s words, our prayers may not be merely limited and shallow but also untethered from reality. We may be responding not to the real God, but what we wish God and life to be like. Indeed, if left to themselves our hearts will tend to create a God who doesn’t exist.”

Us believers would like to encourage and develop biblically faithful teaching and mission. Biblically faithful. We are Bible people. So, what does the Bible say about prayer? Again, according to Tim Keller, it does not give a technique, but points us to God.

The Bible says…

In Mat 6:9-13 the Lord gives us a model prayer, which is also useful as a tool against which we can measure our prayers.

We start with acknowledging our relationship to God—He is our Father. We are coming to Someone who loves us so much that He adopted us into His family, at great cost to Himself. This is an intensely personal relationship that is shared with all Christian believers. It then follows that we do not need to fear coming to Him any more than we would fear going to a loving Earthly dad—but we also need to watch that we don’t slight our siblings. My Dad would never have stood for that!

Next, we state that He is in Heaven and His name should be hallowed. That is, He is holy. It is only logical, then, that we evaluate our prayer requests based on whether the answers we request will hallow His name. Often, we don’t know what the end result of a particular event may be. For example, I would not have thought that losing so much from 2014-2017 would glorify God. He knew it would. Amazingly, it was best for me and those around me, too! So, we pray for His will to be done.

Your Kingdom come; Your will be done. Why? Because that is best for His creatures. He is all-knowing and aware of what is best, even when we are not. So, we pray with that trust: that He knows best. This understanding should result in our preferring not to manipulate Him into doing our will (as if we could), because that would not be best. When I was a child, I thought my mother very unreasonable for not allowing me to eat all the chocolate I wanted. I could argue her ear off. But, she was right.

Once we have established that God is our loving Father and it’s best if His will is done, we can pray rightly for our needs. But, be careful. Paul records that he went without in Phil 4. Jesus says He did not have a bed (or a home, presumably) in Mat 8:20 and Luke 9:59. So, why do we think it is best for us to have a vacation home or the latest model car? “Name it and claim it” has caused much damage because it is simply not consistent with the Bible.  We can ask, but it is best to do so in the full knowledge that God knows what we need. Personally, I am very glad that God knows me so well that He knows what I really need—and provides that.

Of course, our chief need is for forgiveness. A relationship with the Holy God requires and enables us to look honestly at ourselves, see where we fall short, repent, and be forgiven. In doing so, we will see we are no better than those who have harmed us, making it much easier to forgive them. Out of this springs real and effective prayer. The Lord never tells us to “love ourselves” or to “be self-actualized,” as I heard Christian leaders on the radio claim. Rather, we need humbly and courageously to see ourselves as He does and then move on to realize He can and will use us anyway. I’ve found it is only possible honestly to look at myself from the position of being in Him—otherwise it is much too painful. And I rejoice in His mercy.

Finally, the Lord instructs us to ask for protection from temptation and evil. We live in a fallen world. We live in a confused world, where people think money, power, beauty, and sex bring more fulfillment that living for Jesus. It is so easy to fall into that trap ourselves. So, prayer to the real God, based on biblical principles, will include a request that He protects us from where we live.

So, what is the best prayer technique? One that is based in reading and obeying the Scriptures. And that will prevent us from doing as Tim Keller warns, “Without prayer that answers the God of the Bible, we will only be talking to ourselves.”